Karl Binding

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Karl Binding, around 1882

Karl Lorenz Binding (born June 4, 1841 in Frankfurt am Main ; † April 7, 1920 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German legal scholar whose main field of work was criminal law .

Life

Karl Binding came from an old Frankfurt brewery family. His father Georg Christoph Binding (1807–1877) was an appeals judge and full professor in Basel . Karl Binding studied law and history in Göttingen from 1860 to 1863 . He received his doctorate in 1863 . After completing his habilitation in Heidelberg in 1864 , he was professor of criminal law, criminal procedure law and constitutional law in Basel (1865), Freiburg im Breisgau (1870), Strasbourg (1872) and from 1873 to 1913 in Leipzig . The gymnastics in the representative convent Istaevonia appointed him an honorary member.

In the academic years 1892/1893 and 1908/1909 he was rector of the University of Leipzig. His rectorate from 1909 was also recorded in a painting by Eugen Urban together with the deans. The painting is still in the rectorate building of the university today.

Karl Binding (center) and the deans for the anniversary year 1909

The city of Leipzig made him an honorary citizen in 1909 in his role as rector of the university anniversary in appreciation of the university . He was given honorary citizenship in 2010 because of his work, which he wrote together with the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche and was decisive for the National Socialist "euthanasia" campaigns, The Release of Destruction of Unworthy Life . Their size and shape were revoked by the Leipzig city council. Binding was buried in the main cemetery in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1920 .

Bindings resting place at the main cemetery in Freiburg im Breisgau

Binding's son Rudolf G. Binding was a well-known writer.

plant

According to Binding, it is not the criminal laws that are violated by criminals (on the contrary: their actions precisely meet the criteria), but rather the “norms” that belong to public law and are fundamentally different from criminal laws. The penal laws, however, make it possible to recognize the norms on which they are based (intellectual conversion into an order).

Binding's theory of norms sees the essence of crime in the violation of the state's right to obedience to the norms as a special form of “ Do ut des ” . Since the state protects individuals from violating their rights through the legal system, the state can also demand that the citizen respect the legal system . Whoever commits a crime violates the norm and jeopardizes the authority of the law . Since Binding was primarily concerned with respecting the legal order, there was an essential difference for him between conscious and unconscious rebellion against the law. In contrast to jurisprudence, an intentional penalty should only apply if the perpetrator recognized the wrongfulness of the act (so-called intent theory ).

In order to preserve the authority of the law, according to Binding, punishment is required , which he understood to mean a loss of rights or legal interests enforced by the state. The punishment and the execution of sentences do not serve the rehabilitation or similar, but only the "submission of the criminal" to the victorious power of the law. How and for what purpose the sentence is otherwise carried out is also of marginal interest to Binding. This brings Binding into conflict with the preventive-oriented modern or sociological direction of the criminal law science around Franz von Liszt and his concept of the “ purpose penalty ”, which stands in contrast to the classical school, which adheres to the theory of retribution.

Furthermore, binding is known for the legal concept of assets he coined, which has shaped the legal discussion about the components of assets protected by criminal law for many years in the context of criminal fraud . Today, however, his view has largely been supplanted by the mediating legal-economic concept of wealth.

Binding appears in a different light in his brochure The Release of Destruction Unworthy of Life , which he wrote together with Alfred Hoche and which was published shortly after Binding's death. In it, the authors speak out in favor of allowing the killing of the incurably sick and wounded as well as incurably “stupid persons” according to measure and form. According to Binding, the “absolutely pointless life” of the “incurably stupid people” who “form a terribly heavy burden for their relatives as well as for society” was not protected from a legal, social, moral or religious point of view and was therefore upon request to release for killing.

Works

  • The Burgundian-Romanesque Kingdom (from 443 to 532 AD) A study of the history of the empire and the legal history.
    • First volume: History of the Burgundian-Romance Kingdom. With a supplement: language and linguistic monuments of the Burgundy. By Wilhelm Wackernagel. Leipzig 1868 (The second volume: The legal development in ... was announced, but has probably not been published).
  • The norms and their violation. An investigation into the lawful act and types of offense. Four volumes, Meiner, Leipzig 1872–1920; Reprint Aalen 1965.
  • The attempt to found an empire by the Paulskirche in the years 1848 and 1849. Duncker u. Humblot, Leipzig 1892.
  • Textbook of common German criminal law. Special part , 2 volumes, Engelmann, Leipzig 1902–1905.
  • The guilt in German criminal law. Meiner, Leipzig 1919.
  • The release of the destruction of life unworthy of life. Their size and shape. Together with Alfred Hoche . Postum, Leipzig 1920.

literature

  • Wilhelm Haan : Karl Ludwig Binding . In: Saxon Writer's Lexicon . Robert Schaefer's Verlag, Leipzig 1875, p. 24.
  • Fedja Alexander Hilliger: The legal thinking of Karl Binding and the "release of the destruction of life unworthy of life" , Duncker u. Humblot, Berlin 2018 (= Writings on Legal History , Volume 182), ISBN 978-3-428-15241-4 .
  • Armin Kaufmann: The living and the dead in Binding's theory of norms. Schwartz, Göttingen 1954.
  • F. Limacher (Bern): The destruction of life unworthy of life. In: International Medical Bulletin. No. 12, Prague, December 1934, pp. 181-183 (comprehensive review).
    • again in: Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy. Volume 7: International Medical Bulletin. Years 1–6, 1934–1939. Reprint. Rotbuch, Berlin 1989.
    • Further reprint: Götz Aly , Matthias Hamann, Jochen August , Peter Chroust, Klaus Dörner (eds.), Mabuse-Verlag, Frankfurt 2009, ISBN 3-940529-74-5 .
  • Ortrun Riha (Ed.): The release of the "Destruction of life unworthy of life." Contributions to the symposium on Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche on December 2, 2004 in Leipzig. Shaker, Aachen 2005, ISBN 978-3-8322-4633-4 .
  • Jan Schröder : Karl Binding (1840-1920). In: Gerd Kleinheyer , Jan Schröder (ed.): German and European lawyers from nine centuries. 5th edition, Müller, Heidelberg et al. 2008, pp. 62-66.
  • Daniela Westphalen: Binding, Karl. In: Michael Stolleis (Ed.): Juristen. A biographical lexicon. From antiquity to the 20th century. CH Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39330-6 , p. 86 f.
  • Daniela Westphalen: Karl Binding (1841-1920). Materials for the biography of a criminal law scholar , Peter Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, ISBN 978-3-631-40404-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Susanne Hahn: Binding, Karl. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 181.
  2. ↑ Johannes Wessels, Thomas Hillenkamp: Criminal Law Special Part . 34th edition. tape 2 , 2011, p. 259 .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Naucke: Introduction to "The release of the destruction of life unworthy of life".
  4. ↑ Frank Häßler, Günther Häßler: 9. The systematic destruction of “unworthy” life. In: Mentally Disabled People in the Mirror of Time. From Narrenhäusl to Community Psychiatry , Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart, New York 2005, p. 67, ISBN 978-3-13-142531-7 .

Web links

Commons : Karl Binding  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Binding, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Binding, Karl Lorenz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, professor of criminal law
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1920
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau